


A Song to Sing

by nagi_schwarz



Series: Prompt Fills 2018 [18]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: M/M, Stealth Crossover
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-25
Updated: 2018-04-25
Packaged: 2019-04-27 16:52:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,315
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14430003
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nagi_schwarz/pseuds/nagi_schwarz
Summary: Written for the music comment_fic prompt: "Marvel Cinematic Universe, Any, getting overly invested in televised singing competitions (like The Voice and American Idol)."It started with Bucky and Darcy and just kind of spread.





	A Song to Sing

“Hey Bucky, have you seen my watercolor pencils?” Steve asked, pausing to peek in one of the kitchen drawers.

“Nope.” Bucky sounded distracted.

Darcy said, “I have a good feeling about this one.”

“You do? I don’t,” Bucky replied.

Steve frowned, peered around the corner into the den. “What are you two doing?”

“We’re watching The Voice,” Bucky said. “Look at him. That haircut is _classic_ ex-Marine. He’s wearing the tight t-shirt and the artfully ripped jeans, and - just - no. He’s gonna growl out a bad cover of Disturbed’s _good_ cover of Simon and Garfunkel’s The Sound of Silence and I’m gonna puke into my popcorn bowl.”

It had been a while since Bucky had been that worked up about anything.

Steve stepped into the den, paused beside the loveseat where Bucky and Darcy were crammed in together, legs folded beneath them, each with their own bowl of popcorn, glued to the screen.

“What’s The Voice?” Steve asked.

“It’s a singing competition,” Darcy said. “Random people audition. See, the coaches all face the audience. If they like what they hear, they turn around.”

“So, who is this guy?” Steve asked.

Bucky pointed to the screen. “Jon Nealson. Twenty-five. Construction worker.”

It was written on the screen.

Steve resisted the urge to roll his eyes, because Bucky was pointing out the obvious, but he and Darcy were clearly invested in what was happening.

Which was string notes rising.

“Ooh, classical,” Darcy said, eyes wide. She leaned in.

“I know this song,” Bucky said. “It’s the Flower Duet from Lakme _._ We saw it one time, didn’t we, Steve?”

“Maybe?” On the rare occasions when Steve and Bucky managed to sneak backstage to a performance at the Met because Bucky had charmed one of the chorus girls, Steve usually fell asleep.

“Never heard a guy sing this song, though,” Bucky said. “Also it’s a duet. How would one person sing it?”

Steve studied the singer. He could definitely see where the guy had a very Marine haircut, but instead of having muscular biceps and a broad chest, he was lean, whipcord thin, like a bunch of Special Ops and JSOC guys Steve knew, guys who were tough as nails and had to do a lot of long-distance running weighed down by vital gear. The guy didn’t have any tattoos, but his t-shirt was kinda tight, and he was wearing skinny-ish, ripped jeans jeans and a leather jacket, but his appearance wasn’t artful so much as - borderline penniless.

Steve knew that look all too well.

And then the guy began to sing, and -

Whoa. It was like he wasn’t singing at all, like he was standing there moving his mouth and some woman was hiding behind him.

“Holy shit!” Darcy cried.

“Language,” Steve said automatically.

Bucky swore in Russian.

The four judges, two men and two women, wore thoughtful expressions. The guy’s voice was strong, had good timbre best as Steve could tell, and his pronunciation sounded all right, from what French Steve had learned from Dernier. Just - the guy sounded like a woman.

The audience burst into cheers and applause, causing the judges to raise their eyebrows.

The guy built volume, his voice was steady, showed no signs of strain. One of the woman judges was nodding, lips pursed.

The guy segued into the chorus, a series of light, fluttering notes, built to a crescendo, even higher notes.

One of the women slammed on the giant red button in front of her chair, and the chair turned, and her eyes went wide.

She clapped her hands over her mouth so she didn’t make a sound.

The guy saw her expression and winked and kept right on singing.

His voice was stunningly flexible, strong.

The other three judges glanced at their one companion who’d turned, eyeing her awed and pleased expression, but they didn’t turn.

The song ended, and the audience screamed.

The guy took his bows.

The one judge who’d turned her chair for him was on her feet, applauding and sobbing.

The other judges turned, and one of the men said, “Holy -”

The other word was bleeped out.

“You’re a guy!” the other female judge exclaimed.

“Yes, ma’am,” Jon Nealson said with perfect military politeness.

“They’re gonna let him through just on the weirdness factor,” Darcy said.

“But that was a beautiful rendition.” Bucky sat back, expression sober. “He’s really talented.”

“It’s like a dog meowing, though. Cool one time, but will we want to hear it every week? On the other hand, if he sings with a woman for his duets, it could have some cool lesbian-type implications.” Darcy ate another handful of popcorn.

“You - where did you learn to sing like that?” one of the male judges asked.

“When I was a kid, my mom played a lot of opera records, and I sang along.”

“And you just - kept on singing the same stuff you sang as a kid?”

Jon shrugged. “Not exactly. I just have a really flexible voice. I can sing down to baritone range.”

The male judge said, “Show me.”

“Okay.” Jon cleared his throat, and he began to sing in English.

 _When you say you love me_ _  
_ _The world goes still_ _  
_ _So still inside_ _  
_ _And when you say you love me_ _  
_ _There’s no one else alive_

His voice was tenor, sweet, romantic, and cheers rose up in the audience even though he was singing acapella.

Darcy said, “I take it back. I want him to win.”

Bucky said, fervently, “Me too.”

The female judge who’d turned her chair first said, “He’s mine!”

“What’s your name?” the second female judge asked.

“Jonathan, ma’am.”

“Ma’am? So polite. Are you a soldier?”

“Was a Marine, ma’am. Four years active, four years reserve. Finished my hitch a couple of years ago.”

The first male judge said, “How did you survive the Marines singing like _that?”_

Jon raised his eyebrows. “Well, when the only thing that stands between you and certain death is your body-armor and the guy next to you, you don’t really care what he does for fun so long as he’s willing to take a bullet for you, and I was always willing, so -” He trailed off with a shrug.

“What do you do now, if you’re not a Marine anymore?” the second male judge asked.

“Once a Marine, always a Marine, sir, but I get by. Sweep floors and sling coffee at a recording studio. Always wanted to be a singer.”

“And yet you joined the Marines.”

“Lost everyone when I was fifteen. Hitched up when I was seventeen. Only way to get by on my own. Now my hitch is done - shortest hitch I could manage - and I’m going for what I really want.”

Steve’s throat closed. He remembered how it had felt, when his mother died, when the only person left in the world who cared about him was Bucky, and then Bucky was gone.

“He’s gone and done it now,” Darcy said. “Cool voice plus a sob story. He’s through at least one more round for sure.”

Steve said, “Not just a sob story.”

Darcy’s gaze flicked up to him. “Sorry. I just -”

“I know,” Steve said.

Bucky reached out, curled his hand through Steve’s.

The judges bade farewell to Jon, and then the chairs turned back around, and the next competitor stepped onto the stage.

“So, we’ll have to wait a week to see how he does?” Steve asked.

Darcy raised her eyebrows. “You want to watch with us?”

“I want to see how he does,” Steve said.

Bucky tugged lightly, and Steve let himself be dragged into Bucky’s lap. Bucky wrapped his arms around Steve, rested his chin on Steve’s shoulder. “Me too.”

“Who are the judges?”

“That’s Christina, Adam, Blake, and Shakira,” Darcy said. “And luckily for you, I was kind enough to DVR several episodes till Bucky got back from your most recent mission, so - after this we can go straight to next week’s episode. And the week after that.”

“Cool,” Steve said, testing out the modern usage of the word.

Darcy beamed at him. “Awesome. Now - this guy. He thinks he’s all that. His voice is gonna suck. Just you wait.”

Steve leaned back against Bucky’s chest and watched.

As it turned out, Darcy had a really good sense of who was going to sing what and how well, but when she was wrong, she was spectacularly wrong. Steve could see the deliberateness behind the editing of the show, which competitors had clips of interviews and backstory shown and those who sang without introduction.

“Once we catch up, we can watch live,” Darcy said between singers. “Because then we can vote on performances.”

“Vote?” Steve echoed. “How?”

“With our phones,” Darcy said.

The episode ended, and by the end of it Steve thought he had a sense of each of the judges, the kind of voices and music they liked.

Darcy started up the next episode.

Sam breezed into the apartment with a bag of delicious-smelling takeout. “Hey all, what’s on?”

He paused beside the loveseat where Bucky was now on Steve’s lap and he was holding popcorn for both Bucky and Darcy.

“The Voice?” Sam asked. “Really?”

“Sh,” Steve said. “Jon’s singing again. I hope he makes it through to the next round.”

Sam stared. “I - I know that kid.”

“You do?” Darcy turned to him.

“Yeah. He was a Marine when I was in A-stan. Real sarcastic little punk, but smart for a Marine, real smart. Always playing with a yo-yo. Didn’t know he was an opera singer, though.” Sam perched on the arm of the loveseat beside Darcy. “He could do this weird trick - overtone singing, he called it? Where you sing two notes at the same time.”

“He says his family died when he was fifteen,” Darcy said.

“Maybe. He never talked about them much, but when he did, I got the sense his mom had been gone for a long time. Wow. He sounds - good. Usually when he sang for us it was to show off his trick.”

“He’s got more tricks than that,” Steve said. This week Jon was being paired with a female competitor. They were supposed to sing a duet, and their coach would decide who progressed to the next round. Footage of them practicing together was intercut with footage of separate interviews of them. Jon’s partner was nervous about him out-diva-ing her, because he had an operatic voice in any range.

Sam nearly fell off the arm of the loveseat the first time Jon opened his mouth and a soprano voice came out.

Darcy giggled.

Sam scrambled to right himself. “Damn! I didn’t know he could do that.”

Bucky said, “Pull up a chair and see just what he does.”

Jon sang both as a crooning, romantic baritone and as a high-flying soprano in practice.

“I’m not sure which way to go with it,” he admitted it one of his personal interview segments - _confessionals,_ Darcy called them.

When the final performance arrived, he ended going the soprano route. His partner-competitor was right to be concerned, because he definitely out diva’ed her.

Darcy yawned. “I have to get up early for class tomorrow, but if you want one more -?”

“One more for sure,” Sam said.

Halfway through the episode, where it showed Jon listening to an old opera record while he toyed with a yoyo, Natasha said,

“You know these are rigged, right?”

“Blasphemy,” Darcy said immediately, and then yawned.

Sam started violently.

Bucky, who was curled up on Steve’s lap, glanced at her and smiled, greeted her in Russian. That he could even speak in Russian without freaking out was huge.

Natasha narrowed her eyes. “I recognize that guy.”

“He was a Marine in A-stan when I was there,” Sam said.

“No, from somewhere else,” Natasha said.

“I hope it’s not rigged,” Steve said. “I hope he wins. I hope he gets to do what he always dreamed. He’s earned it.”

Bucky looked up at him. “You can be an artist if you want.”

Steve smoothed a hand over his chest absently. Some days he woke and was confused at the body - big, strong, smooth - that he was in. “With great power comes great responsibility, or so Peter says. He’s just a guy who served his country.”

“You are an artist,” Darcy said.

Steve and Bucky both looked at her.

“Captain America is what you do, not who you are. Who you are is Steve Rogers, an artist.” She smiled at them both, yawned.

Natasha, perched on the arm of Sam’s chair like a cat and gazing at the television said, “I hope he wins too.”

“Watch the live show with us next week,” Sam said. “Have your phone fully charged. We can all vote together.”

Natasha actually fished her phone out of her pocket and fired up her calendar. “What time next week?”

The next week, Peter came by with some fancy computer get up named after a fruit pie that he wanted Tony to take a look at and found all five of them crammed onto the sofa and loveseat. Darcy and Sam were crying unabashedly while Jon sang Bring Him Home from Les Miserables.

“What’s going on?” Peter asked, wide-eyed and suspicious.

“Get your phone out and help us vote,” Bucky said.

Peter set down his backpack and sat cross-legged on the floor in front of the sofa.

Darcy ruffled his hair affectionately.

“Okay,” Peter said, phone in hand, “how do I vote?”

On the screen, Jon was taking his bows, and the voting number appeared on the screen.

“Text that number,” Darcy said.

Peter obeyed. “Now what?”

“Now we have to suffer through everyone else’s woefully inadequate singing and see if he wins,” Bucky said.

“Mean,” Steve chastised lightly.

Bucky kissed him. “Honest, you mean.”

“What happens when he wins?” Peter asked.

“Hopefully,” Natasha said, “he gets to live his dream.”

**Author's Note:**

> ...I actually don't know anything about The Voice beyond what I've seen of YouTube compilations of auditions plus what I found on Wikipedia, so...sorry if I muffed it up!
> 
> Title from the lyrics of an Abba song: I have a dream / a song to sing
> 
> Song credits:
> 
> Flower Duet from Lakme  
> When You Say You Love Me by Josh Groban  
> Bring Him Home from Les Miserables


End file.
